La Manzanilla

We have almost been in La Manzanilla, Jalisco for a week now. It is hot and humid, as we were expecting. The ocean is beautiful and warm. The town is quiet and peaceful, but with little to do.

The tourists and part-time residents do not arrive until mid-October, so the town has not started up for them yet. Many of the stores and restauants have reduced hours if they are not completely closed. We have not found very much to do, and the ladies at the beauty salon who Jose befriended (I´m still not exactly sure what happened there) say that there is not much to do in this town. We do not go out much during the day because of the weather. When we do, we walk into town and do a few errands, and then go home a recuperate for the rest of the day.

Dave Hope´s house is very nice. It is out of town a little bit, so it is quiet, but it is not fun walking to in the dark. It is up a steep dirt road surrounded by plants. There is thick grass growing in the middle of the road, which hides many of the bugs, snakes, and other scary creatures that scare me while I walk past. I must admit, it is a tough and often annoying walk when I am tired at night and sticky from the humidity. The house is four stories, three are separate units, and the fourth is a palapa. I do not go up there, because the stairs are steep and curvy without railing. Jose has, though, and said it was nice. We are staying in the second story, which has a beautiful view of the town and green hills. Two of the walls are open without windows to keep the house cooler. It does help, but the bugs are pretty bad. We have seen many new kinds of life: tarantulas, gecos, flat spiders, huge colorful beetles, bright butterflys, green iguanas, and red wasps that swell your throat when they bite you. The gecos are my favorite, and we have a tiny one that has been in our room everynight. The neighbors have two goats that visit us. They charge up the steep rock wall in front of the house and stumble around 15 feet off the ground. The first time they did it I couldn´t help but freak out a little bit, thinking I was about the witness goat suicide.

The ocean is amazing, but only at night. We went swimming during the day yesterday, for the first time, and it will be the last during this weather. It was great while we were in the water, but when we got out we felt sick from being so hot and sticky. That was one of the times I was annoyed with the road up to the house. Cold showers and cold drinking water fixed us. We are just sticking to night swims. I really can´t complain, because watching sunsets while in warm ocean water is pretty great. It is nice to be able to just walk right into the water and feel comfortable, and stay that way for a few hours without getting cold.

We are looking into visiting some of Jose´s family in Tecoman, Colima. It is about 2 hours from here. There is not as humid, and has 160,000 inhabitants, so we think we may be able to do a little more. Having nothing to do is letting our minds think too much, which we can´t let happen right now. Two months in Mexico is daunting. We are going to do some traveling to keep our minds off all our current uncertainties.

-Emma